By the Ruling of the Canadian Broadcast Standard Council:“Who Owns the News Media?”

Facebook Logo LinkedIn Logo Twitter Logo Email Logo Pinterest Logo
By Zhong Yan

At approximately 8:30 p.m., on December 6, 2001, City Television, a Canadian Chinese-Language Television Station, broadcast one portion of “The Chinese Satellite News” from Chinese Central Television (CCTV) of Mainland China, reporting Fu Yibin was being charged with killing his wife and father. There was quite a commotion in the Canadian community after the news was broadcast. Before long, the Canadian Broadcast Standard Council (CBSC) received more than 1,000 signatures complaining about the program. After an investigation, the Council rendered its decision on August 16, 2002. The Chinese-Language TV Station’s actions were in violation of the four articles of the CBSC’s Code of Ethics and the Radio and Television News Directors’ Code of (Journalistic) Ethics. One point was that the Council members considered the comments in the contents provided in regard to Falun Gong in the newscast to be unjust. Another point was that the repeated broadcast of extremely graphic images was excessive. The Chinese-Language TV Station was ordered to broadcast the decision twice within seven days.

On the contrary, in China the reports in relation to Fu Yibin and their portraying of Falun Gong were “fabricated” by CCTV, the largest official news media in China. The “newscasts” are full of close-ups of horrors to be instilled into the respective audiences of the provincial, municipal and county relay stations of the entire country. Furthermore, worse things are going on, such as the party and party groups, various departments, and schools all being organized to carry out collective viewing of the propaganda. Afterwards, the official media engages in the so-called “denunciation.” Throughout different areas the denunciation is turned into “a public opinion,” and is being spread throughout the entire nation.

Two different kinds of society with two different kinds of “public opinions.” It makes one wonder: who can represent public opinions and be the host of the news media? Since the public opinions are expressions of one’s views, the principal body is naturally the people. The news media include newspapers, televisions, broadcasts, and websites. The function of the news media is to objectively transmit messages and its more important use is to be a public “mouthpiece,” to be responsible for the feedback of public opinions and voices. All of society obtains its public opinion feedback through which it then continues to develop jobs, and promote social development. At the same time, public opinion serves monitoring purposes, and as a protective shield between the law and moral values. Therefore, from beginning to end, news media should be responsible for the people. The host of the mass media should be the people.

Then, the objectivity, truthfulness, and ability of being open have become a touchstone of a true civilized society. The more open the society, the more independent the news media, and the reflected public opinions are therefore more objective. On the other hand, if a foul government controls the news media, it is then used as this government’s own “mouthpiece” in order to forcefully instill evil poisons and lies into the people to enslave their minds. This is then society ridden with crisis. The news media lost its public opinion monitoring functions, and the dictator is abusing the law. In such a case, people no longer have a place where they can redress their grievances.

For a period of time in China, audiences of 1.2 billion people have been and are still being immersed in propaganda against Falun Gong. Almost 24 hours a day there are and have been bloody and violent horror story close-ups and the program announcers uses speech that is full of evil poison and bitter sarcastic criticisms. While this type of propaganda is being continuously broadcast, audiences are caught off guard, not fully aware of the lies. All television stations nationwide are forced to relay this kind of “important newscast,” from CCTV. This kind of coercive propaganda is instilled into people’s minds. Then over a period of time, people will become de-sensitized to violence because of such exposure by the media. In the end, people will lose their objective judgment and tranquil thoughts.

In addition, strict measures are utilized to block news media beyond the government’s control. There are problems of long-term blockage of international broadcast television information like Voice of America (VOA), Free Asia Television Station, and the BBC, and 500,000 websites being “blacklisted.” The interposition of Falun Gong truth-revealing material into TV programs was accused of violating international Conventions.

Nevertheless, lies can never stand the test of time, no matter how horrifyingly they’ve been painted, or how bizarre they are. In front of the facts and evidence they’re all being exposed under the sun as forces of evil, and will all “be gone with the wind.” More and more people see that the lie-fabricator that controls the news media, deceived several billions of people to frame the group called Falun Gong. It’s a clumsy show of the demonic foundation of human morality.

The Canadian Broadcast Standard Council’s decision informs people that: In an open society, the public is the lord of all news media; the Canadian public will resist any false accusations and deceitful propaganda.

http://www.pureinsight.org/sci/sci/eng/newscontent.asp?ID=15086

* * *

Facebook Logo LinkedIn Logo Twitter Logo Email Logo Pinterest Logo

You are welcome to print and circulate all articles published on Clearharmony and their content, but please quote the source.